Each day more violence and destruction occurs in Palestine, but little has happened since collective letters signed by Drew University students and alumni about the ongoing crisis were delivered to President Hilary L. Link’s empty office in Mead Hall. Drew Alumni For Justice in Palestine (AJP), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and Social Responsibility Committee (SRC) held the letter delivery ceremony on February 2, 2024 accompanied by fresh flowers dedicated to different sectors of the Palestinian community and words from students and alumni on how institutions have a critical responsibility to speak up against genocide. Despite the gravity of the letters’ contents, emotions exhibited by its community, and global events since receiving the letters, Drew’s administration remains silent in the face of genocide.

February 2, 2024 – Letter Delivery Ceremony at Drew University’s Mead Hall with Drew AJP, SJP, and SRC / Photos provided by SJP and SRC

Since our February 2, 2024 letter, the Drew University leadership team has stalled any progress by harping on the usage of the term ‘demands’ in our letter. The administration has stated that they refuse to respond to demands nor will they issue ‘political’ statements on ‘any domestic or international conflict that is not directly related to Drew University’.

February 26, 2024 • Email Response from President Hilary L. Link

On February 26, 2024, nearly one month after presenting our letter of demands to the Drew Administration, the Core AJP Group received an email response from President Link¹. Upon reading President Link’s email, we were shocked and disappointed to realize that the majority of the response was a direct copy of the email sent to Drew’s SJP.

Below is a brief summary of President Link’s response:

• The University has provided information to the Drew Community in regard to the ‘conflict’ focusing on the ‘safety and security of all of our students’
• The administration refuses to make any political statement about the genocide in Palestine seemingly because of the ‘strong emotions’ that can be activated and the opinions of people within the Drew Community. The University prides itself on inclusivity for all students across the campus
• All student organizations interested in a dialog regarding the genocide in Palestine have been supported in holding programming on campus
• The administration does NOT respond to demands but wants to work with the SJP and support the students involved both academically and socially ‘ensuring their safety and wellbeing’
  • The Core AJP Group was curious then (and now) that if the word ‘demands’ was not used, would the administration’s response be different? If the semantics were different, would that have effected the outcome of this letter to the administration?
• The administration is very interested in hearing the voices, opinions, and concerns of Drew Alumni.
  • President Link then proceeded to give us the contact information for Vice President Bret Silver who is responsible for Institutional Advancement. She urged us to communicate with him to ‘express our concerns and opinions’.

The Core AJP Group proceeded to respond to President Link’s email stating our disappointment in the lack of an individualized response. We also asked if she could elaborate as to why the current Office of the President does not respond to demands, seeing as previous administrations responded to demands found in the 2020 Black Lives Matter Collective Letter. The link to the 2020 letter can be found here.

• President Link did not respond to AJP’s follow up email.

Following the lack of response, the Core AJP Group reached out to Vice President Bret Silver to schedule a meeting to discuss our frustration with the administration.

March 22, 2024 • Meeting with Vice President Bret Silver

On March 22, 2024, the Core AJP Group met with Bret Silver, the Vice President for University Advancement, and two other members of the leadership team at Drew University as a follow-up to our letter of demands. At the time of the meeting, our letter had over 200 signatures. Our main goal was to address the hypocrisy related to the University’s stance on demands and political action. The leadership has expressed pride in Drew University as a socially active community, advocating for what is ‘right’, but then refuses to acknowledge or provide support for students and groups advocating for justice in Palestine.

During our meeting, we presented evidence that the University has previously responded to demands related to ‘political’ action or issued public statements in support of certain causes(e.g., Black Lives Matter protests, Anti-Asian Hate, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine) but refuses to respond to our demands in solidarity with the Palestinian people. While we understand the previous statements and responses to demands were under different administrations, the principle of responding to demands still stands–and the substance of our letter is being ignored due to semantics. While VP Silver continued to state that there was no need for the University to comment on the Gaza genocide, we reinforced our stance that the genocide directly affects Drew in that many of its students are Palestinian and/or have families who are suffering in Gaza; these students have expressed how the genocide has been impacting their mental health and academic experience at Drew, and thus, this matter deserves the University’s attention.

Below is a brief summary of Drew University Leadership’s response in our March 22 meeting: 

• VP Silver noted that although the administration does not respond to demands, they are inherently acknowledging our letter and demands by agreeing to meet with us. The leadership team cannot respond to every demand as it would compromise the leadership’s ability to lead and adhere to bylaws. If they respond to one demand, they must respond to all demands and therefore they are not responding to any. Although the administration does ‘hear’ our demands, they do not want to be told what to do.
  • In response, we requested that the Drew Administration make the community aware of their stance, as they are going from previously commenting on worldly issues to not commenting. Moving forward it appears that they do not want to hear comments from the Drew Community. It is unfair to the students and Drew community to continue to be misled in thinking that the Leadership team will listen to and address our concerns, as previous administrations have. 
• Drew University is grappling with the expectation to address the genocide in Palestine because there are different opinions, and the University is not one person with one opinion. Therefore, this must be addressed in a ‘respectful’ way and Drew has decided that the path of least resistance is to label the genocide as a war, and refusing to acknowledge that it is in fact a genocide. The leadership team noted that this situation is not unique to Drew and is something that all universities and colleges are struggling with.  
• VP Silver stated that the University’s priority is making sure students on campus are safe and sound, rather than issuing ‘political’ statements. Upon our mentioning that students on campus are struggling mentally and academically because of the ongoing genocide, VP Silver stated that he and his team could not comment on the student situation on campus as his role and office do not deal with student matters. However, the Drew leadership team stands by the assertion that Drew students are being heard and supported during this time by the Campus Life & Student Affairs team. They did not provide specific examples.
• The meeting abruptly ended after 30 minutes. The AJP Core Group was under the impression that the meeting would last 1 hour, and we planned around that, but, unfortunately, VP Silver could not afford more than half an hour for us.

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WHAT ARE OUR NEXT STEPS?

After a series of empty emails from President Link and VP Silver, and especially after our unproductive meeting with VP Silver, we are no longer attempting to move forward or collaborate with the Drew University leadership. We wish to proceed with divestment talks in the near future, which will inevitably involve University leadership, but understand that it will be a tremendous uphill battle as the University has made it clear that they are not interested in advocating for the bare minimum–an immediate and permanent ceasefire. We will continue to support and advocate for Drew University’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and do our best to assist in creating more resources for Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim students.

GET INVOLVED! We are forming subcommittees and need more alumni to get involved! We are looking for help in the following areas:

• Research – This group will focus on finding credible sources to cite with accurate numbers and information about Palestine and/or Drew.
• Alumni Relations – This group will focus on connecting with more alumni and finding more avenues for us to connect with alumni across generations, especially alumni who were involved with the anti-apartheid movement on campus against South Africa’s apartheid.
• Social Media – The Social Media group will focus on creating posts that are informative as well as posts to announce updates about AJP.
• Programming – This team will work on ways we can get connected through organizing events online or in-person in support with Pro-Palestine groups.

Interested? Fill out our form HERE! And if you haven’t signed the letter yet, add your signature HERE and share it with fellow Drew alums.

If you would like to learn about when we have meetings, join the Drew AJP Signal group chat, or share questions or comments, email us at drewuajp@gmail.com

1. Prior to to this, the Core AJP Group was able to read the administration’s response to the SJP’s letter of demands. ↩︎